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U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

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Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#681

Post by demodifier »

georgeg23 wrote: post #630

This exact same balloon type was spotted floating over Japan in 2020 and India in 2022, https://twitter.com/BalloonSciDan/status/1479218147098038278 Plenty of companies are working on airships including in China. Companies building airships of similar scale: https://aviationoutlook.com/airship-manufacturers/ The US puts hundreds of balloons over China, https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/radiosondes

Regarding the last point of US putting balloons over China, that page has the following two paragraphs:

"Worldwide, there are about 1,300 upper-air stations. Observations are made by the NWS at 92 stations - 69 in the conterminous United States, 13 in Alaska, nine in the Pacific, and one in Puerto Rico.

NWS supports the operation of 10 other stations in the Caribbean. Through international agreements data are exchanged between countries worldwide."

This seems to suggest that NWS does not operate those over China but the map simply shows all the balloon weather stations that are part of this system.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#682

Post by ashwagary »

wilg wrote: post #552
pard68 wrote: post #338

I have been in "no politics, no news" mode for over a month. I try to do this about once a year. I have yet to tell my wife I do it, but when I am on this limited media consumption she always comments how pleasant I am to be around. I think it is a good thing for all of us to do once in a while, until 80 years ago most news was at best three or four days old, go back 120 years and you're getting only last weeks top t…

I highly recommend this. Just stop bothering with Twitter and the news if you suspect it affects you negatively at all. You don’t really need to be that plugged in. The people commenting on every issue aren’t really helping anything.

>You don’t really need to be that plugged in. The people commenting on every issue aren’t really helping anything.

I agree, replace the time wasted on feeding various outrage machines with building.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#683

Post by dang »

droptablemain wrote: post #384
JackFr wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Pentagon, which badly wants a war with China That’s simply not true.

[flagged]

Please don't post flamewar comments. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#684

Post by rascul »

idlewords wrote: post #608
photochemsyn wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sputnik 2.0 It's a serious warning that the U.S. is dangerously behind China when it comes to balloon technology. Note also, balloons are one way of colonizing Venus (floating high in the atmosphere without having to approach the dangerously hot surface). Clearly we need a Venus Balloon Program to show who's the technological leader on this planet, just like with the Apollo Mission. Mars is for wimps, real explorers…

The Venusian zeppelin mission is awesome; the upper atmosphere there is probably the most earthlike environment in the Solar System. Only the acid clouds prevent the crew from just being able to open the windows and sit around drinking beer in a medical oxygen mask and swimsuit.

> Only the acid clouds prevent the crew from just being able to open the windows and sit around drinking beer in a medical oxygen mask and swimsuit.

You just ruined Venus for me. Thanks.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#685

Post by random314 »

rayiner wrote: post #348
SantalBlush wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US foreign policy is not about spreading democracy. That's a bedtime story told to young Americans who don't know any better. The US is fine working with dictators; it's when those dictators stop playing ball or are ousted that we suddenly want to spread democracy. Noriega, Hussein and the Shah are easy examples.

And the idea that america props up dictators or topples regimes because “it wants their oil” is a bedtime story for jaded American teenagers who don’t know any better. If that was true American foreign policy would look a lot different (and wouldn’t be such a money sink). Where’s all that Iraqi oil money again? U.S. foreign policy is aimed at maintaining stability and facilitating liberal capitalist democracy. We don…

> And the idea that america props up dictators or topples regimes because “it wants their oil” is a bedtime story

This is true, sometimes all they want to do is shore up some bananas. Or just help out West Pakistan to impress China.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#686

Post by amatecha »

dendrite9 wrote: post #528
amatecha wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, that's messed up. Kind of irritating to see the thing was being closely tracked all through BC and just... nothing? Nice...

I mean we only know what we know so far. I admittedly haven't followed this really closely but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a gamble that the public wouldn't notice it. Or maybe it was incompetence or indecision. It was surprising how this balloon spread through the public consciousnesses, kinda like the balloon boy hoax I suppose.

Yeah, we have no real vision into the actual facts, only what gets told to the public, so it's tough to judge. I can imagine it not even being a surveillance balloon at all (though it probably is). I'm always skeptical around stuff like this, haha

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#687

Post by vuln »

angry_octet wrote: post #609
sandworm101 wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When an aircraft doesnt have a transponder, doesnt respond to radio calls, no flight plan on file, and seems to be adrift, it is a hazard to navigation irrespective of altitide. Such things get intercepted and, if in any way dangerous, are shot down. Post-9/11, there are even protocols for shooting down unresponsive airliners.

Name one plane that flies at more than 60,000 feet, I'll wait.

The U-2 can fly at 70,000 typical missions are 60-65,000ft.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_U-2

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#689

Post by ashwagary »

kcb wrote: post #268
Kibae wrote: post #12

I wonder what the cost to take down the balloon was for the US (including monitoring it) vs. the cost of the balloon for China. If the ratio is something greater than 10:1, then I would say China got a pretty good ROI on a small investment.

No. The US almost definitely got the better end of the deal. Lots of pieces got to test their readiness in a live scenario.

>Lots of pieces got to test their readiness in a live scenario.

Against an extremely slow moving balloon?

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#690

Post by JumpCrisscross »

lsiq wrote: post #634
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the system is designed in a way that you have neither a say nor healthy representation America is the most powerful civilisation in the history of humanity. In almost every election, nonvoters could swing the outcome. On almost every issue, practically nobody reaches out to their representatives. Participation is hard. Many of us have more important matters to tend to. That’s fine. But don’t characterise participat…

Don't you find it strange that nearly every country in the world is pursuing the same currency objective at the same time. You know the one, I just don't want to spell it out to trigger the filter. How can every supposedly independent CB pursue the exact same goal if they are not under the direction of one nexus? Elections indeed swing, but do the outcomes matter if the key national politicians are operating under du…

> can every supposedly independent CB pursue the exact same goal if they are not under the direction of one nexus?

They don’t. There is correlation because of interdependence; lowering rates when everyone is raising will trash your currency and juice inflation.

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